Translation of the schema

[practicalparticipation]

We should allow that titles and description fields in the schema be expressed in multiple languages.

In particular, translation into Spanish is likely to be very important for adoption.

Technical issues

At present, JSON Schema v4 does not support multilingual titles and descriptions, but this is proposed for v5 using a simple language map.

Process issues

If we allow translation, we need a clear way to (a) keep language versions in sync; (b) warn users if they may not be.

This would involve a commitment to always translate new releases of the standard prior to release.

It would require explicit agreement on English as the authoritative version of the standard (or some other language version if appropriate...)

It would require any changes to the title or description of a field in the authoritative language to be be tracked, such that translations are flagged as requiring edits.

Short-term vs. Long-term

In the absence of JSON Schema v.5 available yet, we have a choice to make if we want to include translation in the release version.

We could:

• Use the v.5 format for language maps internally, but process the schemas into v.4 style in different languages prior to publishing them.
• Create a separate file of translated schema
• Simply translate a presentation version, without touching the schema (this is most risky in terms of schema moving ahead of e.g. Spanish language version, and leaving potential splits in the community of publishers)

@michaeloroberts might need to weigh in on this one in terms of the resources we have for translation and how in-depth we want to go on it.

[birdsarah]

I'm also concerned about things getting out of date between the english version and translated versions, is there a standard way of handling this. @jpmckinney - any comments on how this is handled by other standards?

Do we intend to have a translation plan in place by 1.0 launch?

[jpmckinney]

To my knowledge, other standards are either unilingual English (and it doesn't have as great an impact on adoption as is feared), or they're just really rigorous about checking that everything is properly translated before releasing a new version of the standard (more expensive, but pretty much the only way to ensure correct and up-to-date translations).

[practicalparticipation]

The current plan I (and @michaeloroberts might be able to confirm) I believe is that:

• Some documentation will be translated before launch (12th - 15th November)
• The schema may be translated in document format (i.e. not translating the JSON Schema contents itself)

The updated Standard Collaborator site has basic multilingual support, and the model adopted would enable a secondary language documentation page to alert users when changes have been made to the English language page since it was last updated (as translations should generally always have later updated timestamps than the English original).

However, how far the standard should be maintained as a multilingual standard in future will have to be a decision for the OCP as they take the standard forward.

[birdsarah]

Need to discuss.

[jpmckinney]

From @practicalparticipation, regarding CSV translation :

It might be that encouraging CSV publication with the first line as local language headers, and the second as OCDS terms, is an interim approach (as parsers can just skip first line and then read in data).

[timgdavies]

There is now a translation framework in place for the documentation using Transifex: https://www.transifex.com/OpenDataServices/open-contracting-standard-1-0/

Spanish language is implemented at http://standard.open-contracting.org/latest/es/

Versioning issues have been addressed in the workflow.

There is work-in-progress on the CoVE tool which should offer the ability to use translated column titles in CSV files, which would pick up on the CSV translation issue - but I think that is a separate issue, so closing this main translation issue for now.

[mireille-raad]

Can we add Romanian to the available translations on transifex? (for the Moldova project we are doing)

[ekoner]

@DC-coder that's done, I've emailed you.